Well, I guess I'm part hipster, I don't know. But it's not like I just randomly switch allegiances, I've been a fan of my favorite teams for quite a while, most for 25-30 years. It's just that in my formative years, whatever everybody else was doing, I often went the other way in sports. For example, my parents and my brother are Carolina fans. The dominant team on my mom's side of the family is otherwise NC State. The dominant team on my dad's side is Carolina. I pull for Duke.
In football in the Carolinas, certainly pre-Panthers, the area around me was generally split between the Cowboys and Redskins. My dad is a Cowboys fan. In fact, for the longest time, I thought all football players were called Cowboys, and it just struck me as odd when juxtaposed to cowboys you see in film. At any rate, while young, I chose the 49ers, which was indeed color influenced. My favorite color as a kid was red, and when I was 7, the 49ers and the Dolphins were in Super Bowl XIX. The neighbors came over and watched the game with us, we had take out from a burger place that gave away miniaturized football helmets of the teams, and I liked the 49ers helmet better. That preference stuck. It should be noted that I can't stand the Panthers. Same as before, everybody locally is in lock-step unison on them, and it just drives me crazy. (Recall also that I do not like local announcing crews, perhaps you see a pattern.)
In baseball, I pull for the Dodgers and Yankees over the locally preferred Braves. I was a Dodgers fan even in the 80s, but when the Braves got good in the early 90s and all the kids in school started wearing Braves hats, it just drove me nuts. It just drove me further to pulling for other teams.
So yeah, I pull for Florida State. At first, it was helped in part by the crowd going with Miami, and Florida State was their rival. But it stuck and I've been a fan ever since.
